Week 14: Social Media with DancingMan504

As a transplant to New Orleans, I had no idea who Darryl “DancingMan504” Young was before last week. Luckily the folks at 52businesses gave me the opportunity to meet this dancing brand of human. Darryl, a fireball of positive energy, sat down with me to explain the idea behind his business concept. If you don’t know (which I doubt), DancingMan504 is a dude who is literally the embodiment of New Orleans dance and parade culture. Basically, DancingMan504’s business plan is to teach local kids how to use the power of New Orleans dance culture to instill a sense of pride in themselves.

As a creative guy, Darryl had a million ideas on how he could accomplish his goal of helping keep New Orleans youth on the right path. All of them them were unique, fun, and goal oriented. The problem Darryl has, as many businesses do, is figuring out what the hell to focus on. Darryl is actually already pretty good at creating social media content on a consistent basis. The dilemma I helped DancingMan504 with was how to deliver that idea in an organized manner via social media.

I told Darryl to ask himself the following questions:

– What is it that I do best as a business?

– Who are my target customers?”

As far as customers, Darryl wants to help out kids in New Orleans, right? So should he get on Snapchat and start hitting up teenagers with messages like “wut up?”. You obviously (should) know the answer is a big fat N-O. What I tried to help Darryl focus on was targeting the gatekeepers for those kids – New Orleans’ parents. DancingMan504’s main target should be moms and dads who are looking for a positive activity that can help keep their kids from going for the negative ones. We discussed a variety of ways via different social media channels that Darryl could use to target these folks.

As far social media content, the basis of DancingMan504’s business (and passion) is dance. Funky, fun, New Orleans dance. This is an art that is made for social media. Pictures, video, and other creative visuals showing Darryl leading parades and dancing in the French Quarter should be his focus. Also, a nice little side effect of creating cool social media content, kids will find it and interact with it. But by crafting the message towards the parents, you don’t come across as a creeper… which is pretty important when your business deals with kids!

I think the most important social media (and general marketing) value I wanted Darryl to take away from the meeting, OWNING WORDS. Think of all the brands out there that own certain words. Seriously, JUST DO IT right now.

(Yes, that was incredibly cheesy and stupid, but hopefully you get the point.)

Darryl already owns his name, “DancingMan504”. Lots of New Orleanians know who he is. That name perfectly tells a customer exactly what he does. In order to own his business message on social media he needs something else. I explained to Darryl the concept of hash tags. DancingMan504 already had an idea for a hashtag (or branding message) rattling around in his head.

#504pride

HERE IS THE SUMMARY OF THIS KIND OF LONG STORY ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA SIMPLIFICATION WHICH IS REALLY IRONIC.

By targeting Dancing Man 504’s customers (parents) on the social media networks they use (a bunch), showing off really cool visual content (pics, video), and organizing his message with a simple branding message (#504pride), this dancing New Orleans celebrity can focus his social media message and roll out!

Social media is constantly evolving. Keeping up with the growing number of networks and how to use them can be incredibly overwhelming. Before you get lost in this growing avalanche of social media pathways out there, quickly answer these questions:

– What is it that my business does the best?

– Who are my target customers?

– What words would I LOVE to own?

By getting to the core of what you do and what your goals are, your business message will become crystal clear. This is the basis of marketing. It is also one of the hardest things you’ll have to do for your business.

Don’t worry if you don’t nail it on your first try. The beauty of social media is actually the fact that:

– social media analytics helps you figure out what works and what doesn’t.

– SOCIAL MEDIA IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING.

This means your message can evolve too. So get started immediately on simplifying your social media attack by focusing on the core values of your business.